Margaret Coel Eye of the Wolf

Eye of the Wolf

Margaret Coel

Berkley, Sep 2005, $23.95, 336 pp.

ISBN: 0425205851

The poetic macabre message shakes up Father John O'Malley, the Jesuit Pastor at St. Francis on the Wind River Plantation. The caller stated that revenge has been taken with deaths. Not long afterward, at the sight of an 1874 massacre in which the Shoshone betrayed the Arapaho to the cavalry, three Shoshone are found murdered with their bodies ritually left to look just like the historical slaughter here.

Frankie Montana, who was seen recently arguing with the Shoshone and has quite a rap sheet is charged with the triple homicides. His lawyer Vicky Holden believes Frankie who insists he is innocent because she knows this low life would do just about anything but not murder. As she mounts a defense, she wonders if the culprit is cunningly trying to cause an Indian war between the two tribes for some unknown reason or a psychopath is avenging the century plus slaughter.

The latest Wind River Reservation Mystery, EYE OF THE WOLF, is a fabulous legal thriller that uses brutal late nineteenth century carnage as the apparent motive to twenty-first century murders. The storyline moves out rather quickly when Father O'Malley listens to the high pitched poetry of the killer on his voice machine and never takes a breather as Vicky tries to prove her client did not commit the crime though circumstantially he appears heading for the fall. Margaret Coel is at her best with this tale that affirms why so many readers feel she is the heir apparent to the Hillerman mantle.

Harriet Klausner